Tag Archives: Marriage

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My marriage wouldn’t be where it is today, without counsel and support of other married couples. We’ve been through counseling. We’ve had friends “camp out” at our house in the midst of a trial until we worked it out. Too many couples to name have covered us in prayer and helped us in many other areas. Each has been very valuable.

One of the biggest challenges in marriage is being on the same page with your spouse. Many couples have asked how to get on the same page with your spouse.

When two different people, from two different backgrounds, usually with two different ways of doing things come together, be on the same page is no easy task. After 12 years of marriage, my wife and I have had some success and big failures in this area, but we’ve finally found a way to consistently do it.

A couple years ago, my wife Stephana and I were at a marriage retreat. We were asked to participate in an exercise where we rated the state of our marriage. If memory serves me correctly it was based on a scale of one to ten.

A ranking of one meant our marriage was absolutely terrible, and ten meant our marriage was the best it could be. After revealing our answers to one another the difference was shocking. One of us ranked our marriage north of five, while the other — uh, not the same, not even close.

Have you ever gone in your bedroom with your spouse, locked the door behind you, and ignored your kids? My wife and I have, and we plan to do it more often. In fact, we believe doing so consistently is going to improve our marriage.

How "The Two Become One" is Your Winning Formula in Marriage

My wife and I recently decided to go through Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University. We realized some changes would be very helpful in the way we view and handle our money. We want to do like Dave says, “Live like no one else, so later we can live like no one else.” So, we signed up and joined our small group on a journey to live like no one else.

In Dave’s session about relationships and money, he shared a story about Belgian horses, which illustrated one major key to winning in marriage. It was the second time in a matter of weeks that I’d heard this illustration used in the context of relationships, so I thought it was worthy of researching and writing about.

I heard a quote several years ago that has stuck with me ever since. The quote is the best – maybe the only – way to predict the future.

So far for me, it has been a great forecaster of my future. And that fact has me super excited about what lies ahead for me and my family in the coming years. There are many versions of the quote, so I’ll quote the one I’m most familiar with…

How to Make Every Trip with Your Spouse More Than Enjoyable

My wife and I have had the opportunity to travel more in the past few years than we have over the previous twelve years of our marriage. Blogging, speaking, and writing my book, The 7 Rings of Marriage, has opened up some amazing doors and opportunities to do things we hadn’t done before.

I will be the first to say it hasn’t been without challenges, including the “fun” of traveling together. During one of our first trips, we were holding up the airport ticket line while trying to check our bags. Our suitcase was on the floor wide open, with all of our belongings out in the open for everyone to see— including our underwear!

4 Tips for Working Together in Marriage

There is a lesson in everything! A few weeks ago my wife and I joined some of our friends for a “fun” outing. This “fun” outing was riding tandem bikes at our downtown canal. All I have to say is if you are considering marriage, go tandem bike riding before saying I do!

Building a Solid Foundation on Friendship, Vision, and Prayer

This is a guest post from Alex Colón. Alex is an entrepreneur, author, speaker, teacher, pastor, blogger and best of all, husband and father of four. He writes on personal and leadership development, vision, marriage, and family related topics on his blog, TheRebrandedLife.com. You can also find him on Facebook. If you want to guest post on my blog, check out my guest post guidelines and submit your post.

For most couples, marriage is a heavy weight to manage. That’s a very bold statement, isn’t it? When you have over 50% of marriages ending in divorce, it’s safe to say that those marriages carried a weight that was difficult to manage—in most cases.

Drive Out Contempt and Jump-Start Kindness in Your Marriage

This is a guest post from Jed Jurchenko. Jed is a husband, daddy to four girls, author, therapist, and psychology professor. He and his wife Jenny blog weekly at CoffeeShopConversations.com, where you will find freshly brewed wisdom to help you lead your family, grow your friendships, and mature your faith so that you and your family can live joy-filled, Christ-honoring lives. If you want to guest post on my blog, check out my guest post guidelines and submit your post.

Small actions can make or break your marriage. Tiny acts of kindness are sometimes the ones that are remembered and impact your marriage most. Unfortunately, tiny acts of contempt are also long remembered, and can be powerful enough to turn a good relationship sour.

The bottom line is that when it comes to your marriage, little actions make a big difference. In fact, my marriage to Jenny started with a simple, but powerful, act of kindness.

About Me

I lost my job, and my family was homeless, yet I learned some valuable lessons from it all, which I now write and speak about. My words are in The Huffington Post, All Pro Dad, The Good Men Project, and Disney's Babble.

My new book, The 7 Rings of Marriage, releases February 1, 2016, and comes highly recommended by many, including #1 New York Times bestselling author Dr. Gary Chapman.

My goal is to help you better lead and love your family, so you can have a lasting and fulfilling marriage, and meaningful influence on your kids.